Women Are Disproportionately Hurting Our Country

BY DENNIS PRAGER | P J MEDIA

(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

When I was in college, I read a book by George Gilder, one of the wisest thinkers of the last half-century, titled “Naked Nomads,” which had a deep impact on me. It was about single men and all the pathologies associated with them. For example, Gilder drove home the point that the biggest factor concerning violent crime was that it is overwhelmingly committed by single men.

While there was no danger — I would say no chance — that I would commit a violent crime (though I was, at the time, single), this fact along with others in the book made me a lifelong advocate of marriage.

I also came to realize that raising good men was the most important thing society could do. If it doesn’t, the male propensity to physical aggression and predatory sexual behavior will wreak havoc. Therefore, raising boys to control their natures is fundamental to society avoiding chaos.

Over the course of a lifetime, however, I have come to realize that while society was right about males, it was wrong about females. Whether spoken or unspoken, most people thought that girls just didn’t need to be raised to control their natures nearly as much as boys did.

But they do.

It’s true that females are not inclined to violence or predatory sexual behavior as men are. But this hardly means that girls and women don’t have to learn to control their natures. On the contrary, as I have been telling parents for many years now, they need to teach their daughters to control their natures just as much as they teach their sons to do so.

Specifically, girls have to learn to control their emotions.

Just as the male sexual drive and violent impulses can overwhelm their conscience and their ability to think and act rationally, emotions can do the same thing in girls and women: overwhelm their conscience and their ability to think and act rationally.

However, it should be obvious that at least two generations of parents — especially among the well-educated — did not teach many of their daughters to control their emotions and think rationally.

The result is that women are disproportionately active in doing damage to our society.

The most obvious example is education. American schools teach less and indoctrinate more than ever before. Big-city public (and most private) schools are damaging young Americans to an extent and in ways no one imagined just a few years ago. Young children are prematurely sexualized — they are, for example, exposed to “Drag Queen Story Hour” in class and in local libraries from the age of 5. These feature a man dressed as a woman reading and dancing for them.

And who is facilitating all of this? In virtually every case, a woman. Ninety-two percent of kindergarten teachers are women, 75% of all teachers are women and 85% of librarians are women.

And they are teaching young people to despise their country (the creator of the poisonous “1619 Project” is a woman), to feel guilty about their “white privilege” or to think of themselves as victims if they are black. Even worse, they are indoctrinating them in “nonbinary” thinking regarding sex and gender.

As City Journal reports, “Los Angeles Unified School District has adopted a radical gender-theory curriculum encouraging teachers to work toward the ‘breakdown of the gender binary,’ to experiment with gender pronouns such as ‘they,’ ‘ze,’ and ‘tree,’ and to adopt ‘trans-affirming’ programming to make their classrooms ‘queer all school year.'”

The same is happening in school districts around the country.

These ideas originated in university gender studies and women’s studies departments, nearly all of whose professors are female.

Teachers and their unions did great damage to young people during COVID-19. They demanded — because of their hypochondria and an apparent inability to apply reason to COVID-19 risk — that schools be closed for nearly two years. Teachers unions in big cities threatened to go on strike if schools opened. In general, teachers unions are just radical arms of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement. They are overwhelmingly composed of women members and women leaders. The head of the National Education Association is a woman, as are the heads of the Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City teachers unions.

Women physicians and health care workers are at the vanguard of ruining young people’s lives at children’s hospitals that push giving young people puberty-blocking hormones and opposite-gender hormones, performing hysterectomies and mastectomies on healthy girls who say they are boys, and chemically or physically castrating healthy boys who say they are girls.

Women are at the vanguard of perverting the medical profession by advocating the teaching of woke ideologies in medical schools, placing these ideologies on an equal footing with medical education.

Last week an organization called Physicians for Reproductive Health published an open letter to the nation’s reporters and news editors, demanding they censor anti-abortion activists: “We are asking for a commitment from the community of media outlets reporting on abortion to keep in mind the true danger that you present when interviewing anti-abortion extremists. You are giving the opportunity for dangerous lies to spread.”

As regards the demand that news outlets censor pro-life individuals and groups, the open letter was signed by more than 600 medical doctors and other health care professionals. Nearly every signatory was a woman. And all four of the listed leaders of Physicians for Reproductive Health are women.

Women clergy have been at the vanguard of pushing Christianity and Judaism to the left, leaving mainstream churches and synagogues increasingly empty. Of course, the increasingly feminized male clergy go along with their female colleagues.

And women are disproportionately supportive of cancel culture, the greatest threat to free speech in American history.

It should go without saying, but it’s undoubtedly necessary to note that there are many women doing great, even heroic, things for our society, and that many men are working to wreck it. But for those who associate women with instinctively protecting children or with being supportive of a traditionally religious life, this era in American history has provided something of a shock.

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2022/08/30/women-are-disproportionately-hurting-our-country-n2612408?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=ba9118a6368f7f5f11df885c43389d53975726fb259d7177fc73f9889065c1a1&recip=26772260

FLASHBACK 2017 - The Trump Economy Is Booming!

By Jim Hoft

Trump Jobs Numbers Out:

Unemployment at 17 year Low

2.2 Million New Jobs Since Election

More Americans Working than Ever!

President Trump’s Economy is Simply “On Fire”.

Job numbers released today through the end of November show an increase of 2.2 million jobs since last years election and an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent. After the same period under Obama, (4.8) million jobs were lost and unemployment skyrocketed to 9.9 percent!

President Trump’s economic results could arguably be the best all time. The stock market is the highest ever and jobs are being created by the thousands.

Jobs

According to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, President Trump added a projected 1.9 million jobs in the first eleven months of the year (January through November 2017) and 2.2 million jobs since last year’s election.

The same cannot be said for President Obama’s first eleven months as he lost 4.8 million jobs. Obama was so bad at creating jobs that by the end of his second term he said that jobs were not coming back. This showed in his first eleven months in office because in every month the US lost jobs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under President Trump more Americans are in the work force than ever before. Over 160 million Americans are working for the first time in US history.

President Trump is working hard to bring good paying jobs back to the US and his efforts are showing historic results.  ADP reported 40,000 new manufacturing jobs in November.  This was the highest reported monthly amount of new manufacturing jobs in the history of their report!

Unemployment

Also according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the US unemployment rate this year has been below January’s rate every month (January through September 2017.) The unemployment rate in January 2017 was 4.8 percent and by November it was down to 4.1 percent.  These are the lowest rates in 17 years.

President Obama on the other hand again moved in the opposite direction. In his first eleven months as President the US unemployment rate increased every month from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 9.9 percent by November of 2009.

 

The mainstream liberal media won’t report this, but when looking at the economy and jobs, the billionaire President Trump is providing a tutorial for any former community organizer that might hope to be President someday.

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MORE Presidential Accomplishments

Weekly Tracker (12.1.17)

Government Accountable To The People

    President Trump has brought Merry Christmas back to the White House, reading the Christmas story at the tree lighting and printing out cards to wish a Merry Christmas.

    President Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to provide oversight and accountability to the runaway agency, and bring it back to its original purpose of protecting consumers.

Unleashing our Economic Potential

    Estimates for the third quarter place GDP at 3.3 percent, despite three major hurricanes making landfall. This is the best six-month stretch of growth in three years.

    Excluding hurricane effects, CEA estimates that real GDP growth could have been 3.9 percent in Q3.

    The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose for the fifth month in a row in November to a 17 year high of 129.5.

    Already in 2017, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has had 62 record highs, including this week.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up over 32 percent since Election Day 2016.

    Closed over 24,000 points for the first time in history on November 30th, 2017.

    The Institute for Supply Management reported that the manufacturing sector grew for the 14th consecutive month since the election.  

    According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. personal income rose by 0.4 percent in October.

    Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index showed small business optimism held steady in the 3rd quarter after the biggest increase in decades during the 2nd quarter. 

Eliminating Job Killing Regulations & Wasteful Spending

    Simply cutting red tape and putting Obama-era regulations on hold have already saved $378 million since President Trump took office, and that savings is expected to jump into the billions next year when the administration’s anti-regulation campaign hits full stride, according to a report from the American Action Forum out this week.

Pursuing Fair and Reciprocal Trade Deals

    The Department of Commerce announced the first self-initiated antidumping and countervailing duty investigation since 1991 targeting Chinese common alloy aluminum sheet.

Restoring Law and Order

    The Department of Justice announced over $98 million in grant funding through the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) COPS Hiring Program to allow 802 additional full-time law enforcement officers.

    The Department of Justice announced $12 million in grants to support anti-opioid efforts, ordered the designation of an opioid coordinator in U.S. attorney’s offices, and created a new Drug Enforcement Administration office in Kentucky to better address opioid abuse in the Appalachians.

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150 Trump accomplishments in 300 days

NOVEMBER

1.   Iran: Trump issued a memorandum Nov. 16 determining that the U.S. has enough petroleum coming from countries other than Iran to permit “a significant reduction in the volume of petroleum and petroleum products” purchased from the mullah-led nation.

2.   China trade: During President Trump’s visit to China in November, trade and investment deals worth more than $250 billion were announced that are expected to create jobs for American workers, farmers and ranchers by increasing U.S. exports to China and stimulating investment in American communities.

3.   Government transparency: The federal government on Nov. 9 made public more than 13,000 additional documents from its files on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, under orders from President Trump. It was the fourth released since October, when the president allowed the immediate release of 2,800 records by the National Archives.

4.   International liberty: President Trump proclaimed Nov. 7, the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, as the National Day for the Victims of Communism

5.   Religious liberty: The Department of Agriculture issued a guidance Nov. 6 that ensures Christians who opposed same-sex marriage would not be discriminated against for their beliefs.

6.   Job growth: President Trump announced in the Oval Office Nov. 2 that the semiconductor manufacturing company Broadcom Limited is moving its headquarters from Singapore to the United States. Broadcom is a Fortune 100 company that already employs more than 7,500 workers in the United States, and that number is expected to grow exponentially, with an estimated $20 billion to be spent on employees annually. Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan said the decision to relocate Broadcom was driven by “his desire to give back to this country that has given me so much.”

7.   Government reform: EPA Director Scott Pruitt placed 66 new experts on three different EPA scientific committees who espouse more conservative views than their predecessors. To prevent conflicts of interest, Pruitt signed a directive Oct. 31 banning scientists who receive EPA grants from serving on the agency’s independent advisory boards.

OCTOBER

8.   Job growth: The White House announced Oct. 25 a new drone Integration Pilot Program that will accelerate drone integration into the national airspace system. Under the program, the Department of Transportation will enter into agreements with state, local, and tribal governments to establish innovation zones for testing complex UAS operations and to attempt different models for integrating drones into local airspace. Calling drones “a critical, fast-growing part of American aviation, increasing efficiency, productivity, and jobs, the White House said they “present opportunities to enhance the safety of the American public, increase the efficiency and productivity of American industry, and create tens of thousands of new American jobs.”

9.   Government reform: Melania Trump, while embracing a more active and public schedule as first lady, is running one of the leanest East Wing operations in recent history, according to a Fox News analysis of White House personnel reports that found she has significantly reduced the number of aides on the first lady’s office payroll in comparison to her predecessor, Michelle Obama. During President Obama’s first year in office, 16 people were listed working for Michelle Obama, earning a combined $1.24 million a year. This year, just four people were listed working for Melania Trump as of June, with salaries totaling $486,700.

10.     Obamacare: Trump signed an executive order Oct. 12 that directs three federal agencies to rewrite regulations to encourage the establishment of cheaper health plans that can be purchased across state lines and are not bound by certain Obamacare rules and regulations. The directive would allow small-business owners, trade groups and others to join together to purchase health insurance. The plans would not be required to include benefits such as prescription drugs. Trump also wants to expand the sale of stopgap policies that don’t cover pre-existing conditions, mental health services and other costly benefits.

11.     Consumer optimism: U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly surged to a 13-year high as Americans’ perceptions of the economy and their own finances rebounded following several major hurricanes, a University of Michigan survey showed Oct. 13.

12.     Iran nuclear agreement: President Trump announced Oct. 13 he will not certify the Iran nuclear deal and vowed that the U.S. would pull out unless changes are made. He also unveiled a new strategy, the culmination of nine months of deliberation with Congress and allies, on how to best protect American security from the rogue mullah-led regime. The plan includes denying the regime funding and any paths to a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles. The Department of the Treasury sanctioned more than 25 entities and individuals involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program. The U.S. also sanctioned 16 entities and individuals that have supported Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard Corps in the development of drones, fast attack boats and other military equipment.

13.     United Nations: The United States is quitting the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Heather Nauert, a State Department spokeswoman, announced the move will be made before the end of the year “This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects U.S. concerns with mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO.”

14.     Homeland security: The Supreme Court dismissed a major challenge to President Trump’s travel ban on majority-Muslim countries Oct. 10 because it has been replaced by a new version, sending the controversy back to the starting block. The ruling is a victory for the Trump administration, which had asked the court to drop the case after Trump signed a proclamation Sept. 24 that replaced the temporary travel ban on six nations with a new, indefinite ban affecting eight countries. That action made the court challenge moot, the justices ruled.

15.     EPA reform: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced Oct. 9 a new set of rules that will override the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s drive to curb global climate change. The agency is moving to undo, delay or block more than 30 environmental rules, the largest regulatory rollback in the agency’s 47-year history.

16.     Immigration: The Trump administration submitted to Congress Oct. 8 a 70-point proposal that calls for increased border security, interior enforcement of immigration laws and a merit-based immigration system. It includes funding and completing construction of a southern border wall, improving expedited removal of illegal aliens, protecting innocent people in “sanctuary cities,” ending extended-family chain migration and establishing a point-based system for green cards to protect U.S. workers and taxpayers.

17.     Religious liberty: Attorney General Sessions on Oct. 6 issued guidance to all administrative agencies and executive departments regarding religious liberty protections in federal law in keeping with Trump’s May 4 executive order. The guidance interprets existing protections for religious liberty in federal law, identifying 20 high-level principles that administrative agencies and executive departments can put to practical use to ensure the religious freedoms of Americans are lawfully protected. Attorney General Sessions also issued a second memorandum to the Department of Justice, directing implementation of the religious liberty guidance within the department. Among the principles are “the freedom of religion extends to persons and organizations,” “Americans do not give up their freedom of religion by participating in the marketplace, partaking of the public square, or interacting with government” and government “may not restrict acts or abstentions because of the beliefs they display.”

18.     Missile defense: The Department of Defense reprogrammed approximately $400 million for U.S. missile defense systems.

19.     Religious liberty: The Trump administration expanded religious and moral exemptions for mandated contraceptive coverage under Obamacare. Obama’s signature legislation required that nearly all insurance plans cover abortion-inducing drugs and contraception, forcing citizens to violate sincerely held religious or moral beliefs, pay steep fines, or forgo offering or obtaining health insurance entirely. The interim final rules note that the United States “has a long history of providing conscience protections in the regulation of health care entities and individuals with objections based on religious beliefs and moral convictions.” The rule aligns with the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling protecting the Little Sisters of the Poor, which says the government cannot fine religious groups for following their faith.

20.     Immigration: Amid strong Democratic opposition, the House Homeland Security Committee gave first approval to the broad scope of President Trump’s border wall Oct. 4, clearing a bill that would authorize $10 billion in new infrastructure spending, new waivers to speed up construction, and 10,000 more border agents and officers to patrol the U.S.-Mexico line.

21.     Space exploration: President Trump revived the National Space Council for the first time in 25 years to assist him in developing and implementing long-range strategic goals for the nation’s space policy. The pace program will refocus on human exploration and discovery. Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the National Space Council’s Oct. 5 meeting, said the administration aims to establish a renewed American presence on the moon and from that foundation become the first nation to bring mankind to Mars. The administration also will renew America’s commitment to creating the space technology needed to protect national security. And Pence pointed out the intelligence community reports that Russia and China are pursuing a full range of anti-satellite technology designed to threaten our U.S. military effectiveness.

22.     Abortion: The Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 2 issued a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) to strongly support the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36), which would generally make it unlawful for any person to perform, or attempt to perform, an abortion of an unborn child after 20 weeks post-fertilization.

23.     Protecting life: The president issued a statement Oct. 1 renewing the nation’s “strong commitment to promoting the health, well-being, and inherent dignity of all children and adults with Down syndrome.” The president observed “there remain too many people – both in the United States and throughout the world – that still see Down syndrome as an excuse to ignore or discard human life.” He said Americans and their government “must always be vigilant in defending and promoting the unique and special gifts of all citizens in need” and “should not tolerate any discrimination against them, as all people have inherent dignity.”

24.     Protecting life: The Department of Health and Human Services has published a draft of a new strategic plan that states in its introduction that life begins at conception. The personhood of the unborn child is central to the abortion debate — as even the justice who wrote the landmark Roe v. Wade opinion has acknowledged — because, if established in law, it would nullify a “right” to abortion. The largely overlooked HHS strategic plan for 2018-22 states the agency “accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.”

25.     Tax reform: Trump is working with Congress to lower taxes by seven points for the middle class and lower business taxes to a 15 percent rate.

SEPTEMBER

26.     Lower courts: Trump is filling up lower courts with lifetime appointees. In the estimation of Democratic official Ron Klain, a “massive transformation is underway in how our fundamental rights are defined by the federal judiciary.” Klain, lamenting Trump’s moves, said the president “is proving wildly successful in one respect: naming youthful conservative nominees to the federal bench in record-setting numbers.” On Sept. 28, Trump announced an eighth wave of judicial candidates, with nine more names.

27.     Canada trade: In September, the Commerce Department, siding with Boeing, slapped a 219 percent tariff on the import of Canadian-made Bombardier jets, arguing they are supported by subsidies from the governments of Canada and the U.K., creating an unfair market.

28.     Korea trade: Trump began the process of renegotiating the United States-South Korea Free Trade Agreement in September.

29.     Climate: In September, Trump shut down a climate-change advisory panel under the direction of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that critics have contended was formed largely to promote President Obama’s climate policies, arguing it lacked representation from “those who think the empirical evidence points to human actions contributing little to global warming and that attempting to reduce it would slow the conquest of poverty around the world.” The EPA also has decided not to renew the appointments of dozens of scientists on various scientific advisory panels.

30.     Homeland security: In September, Trump signed an executive order to enhance vetting capabilities and processes for detecting attempted entry into the United States by terrorists or other public-security threats.

31.     North Korea: After some 25 years of failed negotiations to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the communist regime’s latest threatening actions were met by President Trump with a warning that military action, including a preemptive nuclear attack, would be considered. After Trump’s warnings, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un backed off on his threat to attack the U.S. territory of Guam.

32.     North Korea: On Sept. 7, the U.S. fully deployed the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea despite objections from Pyongyang’s chief ally, China.

33.     North Korea: In September, Trump signed an executive order significantly expanding U.S. authority to target individuals, companies and financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea, most of which are Chinese. Meanwhile, China’s central bank has ordered banks in its massive banking system to immediately stop doing business with North Korea.

34.     United Nations: In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump told the global body in September, “I put America first and you should do the same with your nations.” In the speech, he also explicitly denounced socialism and communism, pointing to Venezuela as an example of what happens when socialism is successfully implemented.

35.     Immigration: President Trump, in September, rescinded Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order, which gave de facto amnesty to some 800,000 people who came to the country as children with their illegal-alien parents. Trump delayed implementing his order for six months to give Congress time to come up with a legislative solution.

36.     Stock markets: Through the first week of September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had 34 record highs. From Election Day to the Inauguration, the Dow rose more than 1,500 points. It climbed another 2,500 points from Inauguration Day, reaching more than 22,400 in mid-September, a gain of more than $4 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected. The Dow’s spike from 19,000 to above 21,000 in just 66 days was the fastest 2,000-point rise ever. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ also have set all-time highs. On Aug. 7, the Dow closed with an all-time high for the ninth day in a row, the first time the market has had a run of that length twice under one presidency.

AUGUST

37.     North Korea: In August, the U.S. initiated a resolution in the U.N. Security Council establishing sanctions that would cut North Korea’s export revenue by a third. Another resolution passed Sept. 11 with new sanctions.

38.     North Korea: The U.S. implemented its own sanctions in August on 16 Chinese and Russian individuals and entities for conducting business with North Korea.

39.     Business optimism: In August, the National Federation of Independent Business said its Small-Business Optimism Index reached 105.3, the highest since 2006 and an 11 percent jump since the week before Trump was elected. The Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index said small business owners are the most optimistic since July 2007. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort measure reached a 16-year high, with current views of the economy also reaching a 16-year high. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose in July to near a 16 year high, with consumers short-term outlook improving.

40.     Job growth: While the new administration certainly can’t take all of the credit – and the government itself doesn’t create jobs – employers make hiring decisions based on the long-term economic outlook, and the president has a great deal to do with that. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported nearly 1.3 million new jobs were created during Trump’s first 200 days. Meanwhile, Obama, in his first six months, saw the loss of more than 4.1 million jobs in his first 200 days. The bureau said 6,000 construction jobs were added in July for a total of 82,000 since January. In addition, 16,000 manufacturing jobs were added in July, a total of 70,000 since January. The labor-force participation rate increased to 62.9 percent in July. In June, there were 6 million job openings in the U.S., one of the highest levels recorded.

41.     U.S. manufacturing: During Trump’s first six months, the manufacturing index was the highest it had been since 1983 under President Reagan. The National Association of Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey showed the highest two-quarter average, of 91.4 percent, for manufacturing optimism in the survey’s 20-year history. The Institute for Supply Management reported its June barometer of manufacturing rose to 57.8, the fastest pace in three years.

42.     China trade: The president signed an order in August to investigate Chinese theft of U.S. intellectual property. The IP Commission Report estimates that the annual cost to the United States economy from IP theft could be as high as $600 billion, with China as the major contributor.

43.     Infrastructure: The Trump administration aims to dramatically reduce permitting time for projects from 10 years to two years, spurring investment and job creation.

44.     Argentina trade: The U.S. struck a deal in August to export pork to Argentina that will allow U.S. pork to enter the Argentine market for the first time since 1992, a potential $10 million a year market for American producers.

45.     Trade: More than $2 billion in fines were assessed to China and Canada in August for illegal trade practices.

46.     Immigration: DHS in August ended the Central American Minors Parole Program that had allowed certain minors from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to enter the U.S.

47.     Immigration: A report in August said that due to reforms and additional hirings of immigration judges, the number of deportation orders increased by nearly 28 percent compared to the same period of time in 2016.

48.     Immigration: In August, the government also said that of the 42,000 illegal immigrants in federal prisons, nearly all of them either had deportation orders or were being investigated for possible deportation.

49.     Immigration: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in August denied requests from employers to import cheap foreign labor into the U.S. for high-skilled jobs if the employers could not explain why they wanted to pay a lower wage for such work.

50.     Military: Trump elevated the Department of Defense’s Cyber Command to the status of Unified Combatant Command in August, demonstrating an increased focus on cyber security.

51.     Military: In August, Trump directed the military not to move forward with a controversial Obama-era mandate to allow, for the first time, transgender individuals to be recruited into the armed forces.

52.     Islamic jihad: In August, Trump presented in an address to the nation a new military strategy that put Pakistan on notice for supporting jihadists and warned Kabul it would no longer receive a “blank check,” moving the U.S. away from the Bush-era policy of “nation-building” and focusing on “killing terrorists.”

53.     Veterans Administration reform: President Trump signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act in August, streamlining the lengthy process that veterans undergo when appealing disability benefits claims with the VA. More than 470,000 veterans are awaiting decisions regarding their appeals. The Veterans Affairs administration is the first agency to post information on employee disciplinary action online.

54.     Veterans Administration reform: The president signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act in August, which provides educational benefits to veterans, service members and their family members, including tuition, fees, books, housing and other additional costs.

55.     Government reform: The president signed an executive order in August projected to save billions of dollars by streamlining and expediting the permitting process for infrastructure projects. The order establishes a two-year goal for the federal government to process all of the actions required by federal law for the environmental reviews and permits of major infrastructure projects.

56.     Welfare reform: In August, the Department of Health and Human Services rescinded an Obama-era directive that had allowed states to request a waiver to ignore work requirements for the poor in order to receive welfare.

57.     Welfare reform: In August, more than 1.1 million fewer Americans were on food stamps under President Trump, compared to the Obama administration.

58.     Law enforcement: In August, the DOJ launched an opioid fraud and abuse unit to fight opioid prescription abuses.

59.     Second Amendment: In August, the Justice Department terminated Operation Choke Point, an Obama program encouraging banks not to do business with “high risk” businesses, which was used to target gun dealers.

The Strangest Thing About ‘Semi-Fascist’ Trump

 By Victor David Hanson | American Greatness

Of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most indifferent or the most obstructed when it came to using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies.

For the Left, Donald Trump is synonymous with “fascism” (or “semi-fascism,” as Joe Biden put it the other day). And for Liz Cheney and most of the NeverTrumpers, he remains an existential threat to democracy. 

But to quantify those charges, what exactly has Trump done extralegally—as opposed to his bombast and braggadocio about what he might have wished to have done? 

And what are the standards by which to judge this supposed menace? Did Trump illegally and with a mere signature nullify over $300 billion of contracted student loans—to firm up his college-student and college-graduate base nine weeks before the midterm elections?

Did Donald Trump weaponize the feared IRS, the logical place to find fascistic tendencies of any president bent on using government to punish his enemies? Did he push through a plan to add 87,000 new IRS investigative agents at a time of national discord?

For the last five years, Trump was rumored to be under investigation by the IRS. Currently, his accountant is facing felony sentencing for advising improper write-offs. 

Certainly, from the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the remarks of Hunter’s associates like Tony Bobulinksi, the Biden family raked in millions of foreign dollars. Evidence so far suggests Joe Biden was a recipient (as the “Big Guy”) of 10 percent of these quid pro quo payments. At times, Bobulinksi may have sent a strapped and broke Hunter thousands of dollars in cash gifts. Were any of these stealthy transactions taxed? Does the recently heavily Biden-endowed IRS care?

If Trump wished to abuse his power over the IRS, he would have followed the Obama model of weaponizing it during a reelection year to go after his ideological enemies.

In Obama’s case, the tax agency slow-walked or denied nonprofit status for groups whose ideology was deemed not helpful to Obama’s campaign in 2012. There was a reason Lois Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment, and it was not to protect Donald Trump.

Politicized National Security

Did Trump blatantly use the national security apparatus of the government to enhance his own reelection bid in 2020? That is, did he do anything analogous to Obama’s gambit with Vladimir Putin in 2011? 

Was Trump ever caught on a hot mic promising a Russian president that he would try to ease Russian worries about Eastern European missile defense if only the Russians would give him space during his 2012 campaign for president against Mitt Romney?  

What we forget about the 2011 Seoul, South Korea hot-mic Obama exchange with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was that all the conditions outlined in their hushed 2011 recap were adhered to by both parties: Obama did dismantle plans for a joint U.S.-Eastern European long-range missile defense—a system that might be now of advantage to the U.S. and its allies. Putin did stay quiet during the Obama campaign cycle. Obama did get reelected. And Putin did invade Ukraine and Crimea only after Obama was elected (or, a cynic might put it, because Obama was reelected). 

A current Trump “collusion” critic, mutatis mutandis, might have surmised that a colluding Barack Obama put the national security of the United States and its allies at risk in order to use his office to massage campaign advantages over Mitt Romney in 2012. And the ultimate result of such machinations was a loss of U.S. deterrence that in part explained Russian aggression in 2014.

Weaponizing Justice

Did Trump weaponize the FBI? That is, did the FBI go after journalists, former Obama officials, or Democratic Party activists who variously were attacking Don Jr. or Ivanka on the pretenses of retrieving one of their lost laptops or diaries? 

Did Trump use Republican National Committee firewalls to transfer money to private lobbyists and law firms to find dirt on Hillary Clinton in 2016, and then turn it all over to the FBI to launch a Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Clinton, centered around a Trump-hired ex-spy who became a paid FBI informant? 

Are there texts of Trump-era FBI agents talking about how to “stop” Hillary Clinton’s or Biden’s election bid?

Did Trump’s FBI, in the predawn hours, burst into the homes of New York Times reporters—in James O’Keefe -style—and march them outside in their underwear, all for the possible “crime” of receiving a stolen draft of the Supreme Court early draft of the Dobbs decision? Which is the greater “crime”—trafficking in clearly stolen confidential Supreme Court papers or looking at the abandoned, lost, and lurid diary of a wayward presidential daughter?

Did the Trump Justice Department start an investigation of the suspected illegal lobbying of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, who used the former’s political connections to win large cash payments from foreign governments? Were there Trump officials in the permanent Justice Department who went after his various political opponents on the pretexts of the Logan Act?  Or did the Trump Administration help spread the allegations of any hired anti-Clinton ex-spies and salt them around the bureaucracies?

Speaking of Trump and threats to the democratic order, did any Trump attorney general refuse a congressional subpoena, as former Attorney General Eric Holder did? Was anyone held in contempt of Congress, as Holder was? Did any simply refuse to honor subpoenas and withhold requested documents from Congress, as the Obama Administration did time and again?

Did Trump order an FBI raid on the Obama home, on rumors that there were thousands of documents under dispute with the National Archives in his possession, especially given the Obama record of fiercely fighting any Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to release his documents?

Was a John Podesta put in leg irons by the FBI? Was Robbie Mook’s house stormed to learn of what he knew about Hillary Clinton’s missing emails? 

Was Jake Sullivan’s phone grabbed by the FBI at an airport to determine his role in the Russian collusion hoax? 

Or, with a look ahead to his own reelection, did Trump in 2018 order a raid on the Biden home, in search of “lost” Biden vice presidential documents, supposedly improperly removed after Biden’s tenure that might have shed light on the Biden family’s extracurricular foreign lobbying?

Where Is Trump’s Deep State?

Are there now any former Trump loyalists who, as “anonymous” officials in cabinet agencies or obstructionists on the National Security Council, are writing op-eds about their stealthy daily efforts to undermine Biden’s executive orders or his administration’s action? Is anyone listening to Biden’s phone calls with foreign leaders while working with Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and while prepping a “whistleblower” to find grounds for impeachment based on some of the things Biden has allegedly said to foreign leaders? 

Did Pfizer rush prematurely to announce a viable COVID-19 vaccination to aid Trump’s reelection—or in contrast, did it slow walk a viable vaccination’s rollout until after the election to massage the result?

Are there now “50 former intelligence officials” who signed affidavits in support of Trump’s allegations about the authenticity of Hunter’s laptop? Are there dozens of retired four-stars now opportunely blasting Joe Biden’s historic humiliation of the United States in Kabul? Have any retired admirals mocked the Uniform Code of Military Justice to write New York Times op-eds suggesting a befuddled Biden leave office “the sooner, the better”?

Are there former Trump officials writing in Foreign Policy that Biden is a disaster who could be removed by impeachment or the 25th Amendment—or more rapidly by a military coup? Are retired officers writing to General Mark Milley urging him to act should he feel in the next election that a likely Republican loss seems suspicious?

Election Interference and Denial? 

Between 2017 and 2020, did Trump’s team systematically seek to change the voting laws in key states to radically transform traditional balloting, in a mail-in or early voting revolution, in which only 30 percent of the electorate would vote on Election Day?

If Trump improperly questioned the ballot result of the 2020 election, then he sinned in the long tradition of presidential ballot objectors, including former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), January 6 committee chairman himself Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), and Hillary Clinton, who claimed Trump was an illegitimately elected president and advised Biden not to concede if he lost the 2020 popular vote. A defeated Stacey Abrams toured the country claiming she was the “real” governor of Georgia, yet nobody smears her as an “election truther.”

Was there any “dark money” effort analogous to the efforts of corporate and tech money along with DNC activists and Biden operators in what Time magazine’s Molly Ball described as a “conspiracy” to ensure the defeat of Trump’s opponent? 

Did Trump’s team coordinate with right-wing billionaires to infuse hundreds of billions of dollars to modulate street protests, to absorb the work of state and local registrars in key precincts, and to censor unfavorable stories on social media? 

Trump impotently railed and bayed to the wind about the “fake news” reporters at his rallies. By contrast, the Left, both private elites and public officials, kept quiet and injected half a billion dollars to alter the way people voted and effectively to censor the way people produced and consumed the news.

Restoring Our Norms?

How about Trump’s efforts to revolutionize the very system of government? Did he promote a court-packing scheme to ensure he might not just get a 5-4 majority, but perhaps an 11-4 conservative advantage in a new 15-justice Supreme Court? 

Did he keep mum while right-wing demonstrators swarmed the homes of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan? Did his attorney general ignore the obvious felonies involved in such threatening tactics? Did Trump work with his Republican Congress in 2017 to end the filibuster to ensure his legislation would not be stonewalled? Did he dream up ways of getting rid of the Electoral College so the “blue wall” might never return? 

It’s alleged that Trump was insincere when he approved the request for thousands of federal troops to be available to local law enforcement on January 6, or that he did not really mean it when he instructed pro-Trump demonstrators on January 6 to “Peacefully and patriotically march to the Capitol.” 

Perhaps even the hint of encouraging any type of protest was reckless in such partisan times. But just days after violent protestors attacked Secret Service agents manning barricades and had sought to storm onto the White House grounds, did Trump boast to the nation of the ongoing demonstrations, as did Kamala Harris, soon to be a vice presidential candidate?

They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be—everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.

Was that a sober or insurrectionary thing to advise in a summer of rioting that saw 120 days of violence, $2 billion in damage, 35 dead, and hundreds of police officers injured?

Did Trump as president meet with CIA and FBI directors who, in their weekly and daily briefings, apprised him of efforts to monitor, spy, and infiltrate the campaign of Joe Biden?

Was there, after 2017, a Republican majority committee investigating the former Obama role in launching Operation Crossfire Hurricane, or Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s secret meeting with Bill Clinton while she was investigating Hillary Clinton? And if there were, would Obama loyalists in the House be excluded by the Republican speaker from participating in House investigations that also would allow no hostile or even neutral witnesses, no general counsel’s report, and no cross-examinations?

The strange thing about Trump was that he did not use extraordinary powers to investigate anyone unlawfully. He boasted, he railed, he screamed, he whined, he became at times crude and obnoxious. But he did not use the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, or the IRS to go after the Obamas, the Clintons, or the Bidens. 

Instead, he became the most investigated, probed, smeared, and autopsied president in modern history. Trump’s legislative agenda did not include revolutionary changes in the Electoral College or the filibuster, or radical changes to the Supreme Court.

In fact, of the last three presidents, Trump was either the most inept or indifferent, or the most obstructed concerning any issue of using government agencies for his own partisan political advantages or to neuter his enemies. 

In truth, the entire apparatus of permanent government—the Pentagon hierarchy, the Washington elites at the FBI and CIA, the permanently entrenched at the Justice Department, and the apparat at the IRS all despised Donald Trump. And they did not just hate him but acted on their antipathy by using their powers of government to destroy his campaign in 2016, to undermine his transition, to either obstruct or sabotage his initiatives while president, and to hound him as an ex-president. As ex-felon and FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith put it of his own illegal effort to destroy a president, “Viva le [sic] resistance.” Is that the sort of FBI we want—a cadre of self-described revolutionaries?

Donald Trump was impeached for raising the question of Biden family corruption in Ukraine with the Ukrainian president and delaying offensive military aid that had never been approved by a Democratic president.

Evidence since Trump’s impeachment suggests he was prescient in his warning to the Kyiv government to stay out of domestic American politics. Everything thing we know since that 2021 impeachment vote solidifies—not contradicts—Trump’s point that the Biden family was corrupt, and Hunter Biden was receiving large sums of money from Ukraine and China solely because Joe Biden had been vice president and was seen as a possible or even likely future president worthy of such corrupt investment. Or to put it another way, why would those with contacts with the Ukrainian government ever pay millions to an incompetent, drug-addicted miscreant like Hunter Biden, if not for pay-for-play influence? 

In that context, Joe Biden’s early boast that he got a Ukrainian attorney general fired, most likely for probing too deeply matters involving his family, gives credence to Trump’s instincts. So does the fact that both Obama and Biden for a time stopped shipments of offensive weapons to Ukraine, while Trump for a time only delayed them but eventually gave them what they wished. 

The result of this unprecedented effort to accuse Trump of using government fascistically while fascistically using government to destroy a president is all too clear in the destroyed careers who sought to undermine constitutional government. What John Brennan, James Clapper, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and a host of retired flag officers and intelligence operatives share is not just their venomous antipathy toward an elected president and their efforts rhetorically and often concretely to neuter him, but their subsequent disgrace even among those who once cheered them on.

August On Verge Of Being Tropical-Storm-Free For Only Third Time In 60 Years

BY TYLER DURDEN

If September 1 rolls around without a named tropical storm this month, it would be the third August since 1961 and first August since 1997, without a named storm, according to AccuWeather. 

It's been a tranquil hurricane season despite the number of named storms that tend to increase in August and peak in September. 

Dry air, Saharan dust, and wind shear are reasons tropical activity remains depressed. Storms coming off the African coast hit dry air and wind shear disorganizes them and prevents further development before reaching the eastern Caribbean. 

If the storms can break through those barriers, there's a lot of warm water in the Gulf of Mexico and along the US coastlines that could allow storms to develop. But so far, only three storms (Alex, Bonnie, and Colin) have successfully developed. 

Less than a week to go before August closes out. There minor tropical development has been spotted in the Atlantic Basin: 

"As these waves come off [the African coast] each one kind of moistens up the atmosphere, it makes it a little more favorable for the next one," said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Adam Douty.

"Eventually we'll get one to develop," Douty said. "It looks like the one right around the end of the month could be the one. It looks like it'll be really close whether we make it through the entire month without a system."

 By this time last year, there were seven named storms in August, with four developing into hurricanes. 

At the start of the season, NOAA forecasted 14-21 named storms, of which 6-10 could become hurricanes, including 3-6 major hurricanes. 

This month could end up being the third time since 1961 that there was a tropical storm-free August in the Atlantic basin -- only about six days left to find out. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/august-verge-tropical-storm-free-third-time-60-years

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From Instapunit

HOW IT STARTED: Global warming is killing the Great Barrier Reef, study says.

—CNN.com, April 18^th, 2018.

How it’s going: Parts of Great Barrier Reef record highest amount of coral in 36 years.

—CNN.com, August 4^th, 2022.

The Half-Trillion-Dollar Student-Loan Executive Coup

COMMENTARY

BY FLORIDA US CONGRESSMAN VERN BUCHANAN

President Biden's $500 billion student loan giveaway is a nothing more than an election-year ploy to curry favor with our country's top earners and most highly educated grads at the expense of those who made the hard decisions and played by the rules.

When you look at who actually has student loans, the contrast is stark:

• 37 percent of Americans have a four-year degree
• 14.3 percent of Americans have an advanced degree
• 56 percent of student loan debt is held by those who went to graduate school

Under Biden's plan, that means plumbers are footing the bill for professors.

Worse, the president doesn’t even have the authority to wholesale wipeout loan debt, as he and Speaker Pelosi have even noted previously! 

So much for the separation of powers. 

That’s why I cosponsored the Student Loan Accountability Act which ensures that the secretary of education cannot unilaterally cancel student loans.
 
Read the editorial from the Wall Street Journal below and let your representatives in Congress know if you agree – taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot this $500 billion behemoth! 

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The Half-Trillion-Dollar Student-Loan Executive Coup

The Editorial Board

President Joe Biden announces a federal student loan relief plan that includes forgiving up to $20,000 for some borrowers and extending the payment freeze at the White House on Aug. 24.- PHOTO: BONNIE CASH - POOL VIA CNP/ZUMA PRESS

Well, he did it. Waving his baronial wand, President Biden on Wednesday canceled student debt for some 40 million borrowers on no authority but his own. This is easily the worst domestic decision of his Presidency and makes chumps of Congress and every American who repaid loans or didn’t go to college.

The President who never says no to the left did their bidding again with this act of executive law-making, er, breaking. The government will cancel $10,000 for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants. The Administration estimates that about 27 million will be eligible for up to $20,000 in forgiveness, and some 20 million will see their balances erased.

But there’s much more. Mr. Biden is also extending loan forbearance for another four months even as unemployment among college grads is at a near record low 2%. Congress’s Cares Act deferred payments and waived interest through September 2020, but Donald Trump and Joe Biden have extended the pause for what will now be nearly three years.

The Administration is claiming, again, that this will be the last extension and is needed to help borrowers prepare to resume payments. But even if the Administration lets the forbearance end in December, about half of borrowers won’t have to make payments since their debt will be canceled.

Most of the rest will only make de minimis payments because Mr. Biden is also sweetening the income-based repayment plans that Barack Obama expanded by fiat. Borrowers currently pay only up to 10% of discretionary income each month and can discharge their remaining debt after 20 years (10 if they work in “public service”).

Democrats said these plans would reduce defaults. They haven’t. Federal student debt has ballooned because many borrowers don’t make enough to cover interest and principal payments, so their balances expand. Student debt has nearly doubled since 2011 to $1.6 trillion, though the number of borrowers has increased by only 18%.

Now Mr. Biden is cutting undergrad payments to a mere 5% of discretionary income. The government will also cover unpaid monthly interest for borrowers so their balances won’t grow even if they aren’t paying a penny. This will mask the cost to taxpayers of the Administration's rolling loan write-off. Student-loan debt won’t appear to swell even as it does. What a fabulous accounting trick.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that canceling $10,000 for borrowers earning up to $125,000 will cost about $300 billion. The Pell grant addition could increase this by as much as $270 billion. The four-month freeze on payments will cost $20 billion on top of the roughly $115 billion it already has.

The payment plan revisions could eventually add hundreds of billions of dollars more. An analysis commissioned by the Trump Education Department estimated that taxpayers would lose $435 billion on federal student loans, largely because borrowers in these payment plans on average were expected to repay only half of their balances. Now they will repay even less.

Worse than the cost is the moral hazard and awful precedent this sets. Those who will pay for this write-off are the tens of millions of Americans who didn’t go to college, or repaid their debt, or skimped and saved to pay for college, or chose lower-cost schools to avoid a debt trap. This is a college graduate bailout paid for by plumbers and FedEx drivers.

Colleges will also capitalize by raising tuition to capture the write-off windfall. A White House fact sheet hilariously says that colleges will “have an obligation to keep prices reasonable and ensure borrowers get value for their investments, not debt they cannot afford.” Only a fool could believe colleges will do this.

It’s important to appreciate that there has never been an executive action of this costly magnitude in peacetime. Not Mr. Obama’s immigration amnesties, not his Clean Power Plan, not Mr. Trump’s border-wall fund diversion. Nothing comes close to this half-trillion-dollar or more executive coup.

Congress authorized none of Mr. Biden’s loan relief and appropriated no funds for it. Progressives say the Higher Education Act of 1965 lets the Education Secretary “compromise” (i.e., modify) student debt. But the Federal Claims Collection Act of 1966 sets very limited terms and strict procedures for such “compromise.”

Even Mr. Biden said in December 2020 it was “pretty questionable” whether he had authority to cancel debt this way. The Supreme Court recently underscored in West Virginia v. EPA that Congress must provide clear authorization to agencies taking action on major questions. Canceling so much debt is beyond major to a mega-ultra-super question.

With the cancellation precedent, progressives will return to this vote-buying exercise every election year. The only antidote will be if Democrats conclude this gambit boomeranged politically by mobilizing an opposition coalition of Americans who are tired of being played for saps by progressives. The test arrives in November.